German red wins international pinot noir prize

Yes, that's correct. A Dernauer Pfarrwingert Spätburgunder Großes Gewächs 2005 by Weingut Mayer-Näkel beat all-comers including the best Burgundy, Chile and New Zealand had to offer. This result maybe isn't as cataclysmic a the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976, but it's certainly a feather on the cap of the German wine industry. I think the wine in question costs about EUR 48 (about GBP 40 when you add on all the duty), which I suppose is probably just as well. Reassuringly expensive, you could say.

The most astonishing aspect about this is probably the fact that the region where the wine was produced, the Ahr, is situated only just south of Bonn. The vineyards there are vertiginous, however, with volcanic slate soil. And the Dernauer Pfarrwingert vineyard specifically is, by all accounts, a veritable sun-trap.